August 2026 announcements

This article provides the announcements for Microsoft Partner Center for August 2026.

Invoice generation delayed for some partners

Invoice generation is currently delayed for a small percentage of partners. Microsoft is actively working to resolve the issue.

• Date: August 7, 2026
• Workspace: Billing
• Impacted audience: CSP distributors and direct bill partners

Microsoft identified a delay in invoice generation affecting approximately 7% of partners. As a result, impacted partners might experience a delay in the availability of their invoices and related reconciliation files in Partner Center.

Microsoft is actively working to address the issue and restore normal invoice generation timing. Affected invoices are generated and made available as soon as the issue is resolved.

No action is required from partners. Invoices remain accurate, and only their availability timing is affected. Partners can continue to access previously generated invoices and reconciliation files as usual.

We appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this issue and provide the most accurate and timely billing information possible.

Security and compliance offers for partners

Use these key Microsoft security and compliance offers to re-engage customers, accelerate deals, and expand security and compliance opportunities.

• Date: August 6, 2026
• Workspace: General
• Impacted audience: CSP distributors, indirect resellers, direct bill partners, and scale solution providers (SSPs).

Key current Microsoft promotions and offers are available now, designed to support you in starting new customer conversations, re-engaging with existing opportunities, and accelerating deals. These offers support customers’ needs, from Microsoft 365 Copilot governance and compliance to Microsoft 365 upgrades and advanced security adoption. Match the right offer to each customer’s starting point and verify current eligibility before presenting them with pricing.

50% off Microsoft Purview Suite for Business Premium—extended

• The offer: 50% off enhanced data protection on the Microsoft Purview Suite for Business Premium.
• Who qualifies: Customers who license Business Premium together with Microsoft 365 Copilot Business or Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Why it matters: As customers adopt Microsoft 365 Copilot, data security, protection, and governance become increasingly important. Use this offer to position Microsoft Purview as a key component of a secure and compliant Microsoft 365 Copilot deployment.
• Available through: December 31, 2026 (limited-time offer).

Microsoft 365 E5, Defender, and Purview suite through the CSP channel – extended

• The offer: 10% and 15% discount respectively for Microsoft 365 E3 and Microsoft 365 E5 with three-year and one-year subscription terms, and 10% off the Defender Suite and the Purview Suite.
• Who qualifies: New-to-Microsoft 365 E5 customers, or Defender and Purview Suites, with Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) one-year and/or three-year subscription terms; offer stacking isn't allowed.
• Why it matters: This promotion creates an opportunity to upsell customers from Office 365 to the full Microsoft 365 E5 suite, including productivity, collaboration, AI, end-to-end security, data security, and compliance. For customers who aren't yet committed to ME3 and/or ME5, attach Defender and Purview suites for advanced security and compliance capabilities.
• Available through: September 30, 2026.

New CSP security add-ons—price update

• The offer: Expand advanced security opportunities for Microsoft 365 E3 customers with new CSP add-ons. New security add-on offers are available now via CSP, with consistent pricing across Enterprise Agreements (EA) and CSP: Microsoft Entra ID P2; Defender for Endpoint P2 add-on for Microsoft 365 E3; and Defender for Office 365 P2 add-on.
• Why it matters: Consistent pricing across CSP and EA purchasing models simplifies customer conversations and reduces licensing complexity, making it easier for partners to attach advanced security capabilities and expand their service scope.
• Who qualifies: Customers who want to upgrade to advanced security, but aren't ready to commit to ME5 or Defender and Purview suites - particularly Microsoft 365 E3 customers ready to add capabilities.
• Available now.

Next Steps

Review each offer and match it to your customers’ starting points:

• On-premises or Office 365 today: Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 CSP 10% promotion or Accelerate with Microsoft 365 E5
• Already on Business Premium and evaluating Microsoft 365 Copilot: 50% off Purview Suite for Business Premium to ensure the smooth rollout of AI
• Already on Business Premium with Microsoft 365 Copilot: 50% off Purview Suite for data protection
• Microsoft 365 E3 customer ready for more security: New CSP security add-ons (Entra ID P2, Defender for Endpoint P2, Defender for Office 365 P2)

Confirm current eligibility, terms, and end dates on the linked Partner Center announcement pages before presenting pricing to a customer.

Join the Microsoft Security Partner Community on LinkedIn to connect with peers, exchange best practices, and stay informed on Microsoft Security programs, events, and opportunities.

Updated Solutions Partner badge names

Customer-facing Solutions Partner badges now align to the three commercial solution areas. Your requirements, benefits, and paths stay the same.

• Date: August 5, 2026
• Workspace: General
• Impacted audience: Training services partners

New badge names, same technical foundations

At MCAPS Start for Partners, which took place on July 22, 2026, Microsoft announced an update to the names of the customer-facing Solutions Partner badges to align to the three commercial solution areas: AI Business Solutions, Cloud & AI Platforms, and Security. The six solution paths (Business Applications, Data & AI (Azure), Digital & App Innovation (Azure), Infrastructure (Azure), Modern Work, and Security) remain the foundation for requirements, scoring, and specializations. The naming update improves how your capabilities are represented in-market - through three commercial solution area badges that signify related skills in a clearer, more impactful way to customers. With badges aligned to the three commercial solution areas, you can more easily position your capabilities, support seller conversations, and show credibility where it matters most: in front of customers.

How the badges map:

• Business Applications and Modern Work is now Solutions Partner for AI Business Solutions
• Data & AI (Azure), Digital & App Innovation (Azure), and Infrastructure (Azure): now Solutions Partner for Cloud & AI Platforms
• Security: remains Solutions Partner for Security

What stays the same:

Your path to attainment doesn't change. You still attain designations through the same six solution paths, with the same partner capability score metrics and technical requirements. No new paths are introduced, and no existing ones are removed. Your eligibility for benefits and incentives remains the same, continuing to align to the solution path you enroll in. Specializations still map to the same solution paths, with the same criteria, differentiation, and benefits. In short: the work you already invested still counts.

Next Steps

No action is required - your designations, requirements, benefits, and specializations remain unchanged.

Sign in to Partner Center to see the updated badge names, and refresh your customer-facing materials to reflect the new names where applicable.

Questions

For more information, refer to the Solutions Partner program resources in Partner Center, or reach out to your Partner Development Manager.

Windows 365: Service plan name update from Windows 365 Frontline to Windows 365 Flex

Starting September 3, 2026, Windows 365 Frontline service plans are renamed to Windows 365 Flex. This is a branding update only. There are no changes to functionality, licensing, user entitlements, provisioning, or billing.

• Date: August 4, 2026
• Workspace: General
• Impacted audience: All partners with Windows 365 Frontline customers

The Windows 365 Frontline SKUs of all types are renamed to Windows 365 Flex SKUs and are available for purchase starting on September 3, 2026.

These SKUs remain available for purchases with the current “Frontline” naming convention through Sept 2, 2026.

What this change means for your business:

After this change, your customers might notice that service plans previously displayed as Windows 365 Frontline show as Windows 365 Flex in Microsoft licensing and administration experiences.

This update doesn't:

• Change user access or entitlements
• Affect existing Cloud PCs
• Require reassignment of licenses
• Change service capabilities or functionality
• Modify billing or licensing rights

Windows 365 Flex users and administrators continue to receive the same Windows 365 service experience following the rename.

Next steps

• No action is required. This update reflects a service-plan naming change and doesn't introduce new features, retire existing functionality, or alter current customer entitlements.
• If your organization maintains internal documentation, reports, automation, scripts, ticketing workflows, compliance records, or operational procedures that reference the Windows 365 Frontline service-plan name, update those references to Windows 365 Flex after the rename is visible in your tenant.
• If you created custom reporting or inventory processes that display service-plan names, validate those experiences after the rollout is complete.
• To learn more about this SKU and how to message it to customers, visit the support page.

Microsoft 365 promotion updates

Advance Microsoft 365 growth opportunities with extended E3 offers, eligible E7 promotions, and growth margin planning.

• Date: August 3, 2026
• Workspace: General
• Impacted audience: CSP distributors, indirect resellers, direct bill partners, and scale solution providers (SSPs).

To support continued customer acquisition and upsell opportunities for Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners, key Microsoft 365 E3 promotions now continue through December 31, 2026.

At the same time, Microsoft 365 E7 promotional offers retire on October 1, 2026, as Microsoft evolves partner investments toward growth margin - expanding beyond promotional transactions to sustain customer growth over time.

Together, these promotional updates give you a clear path to growing Microsoft 365 opportunities today while strengthening your long-term growth strategy.

Extended Microsoft 365 E3 promotions

The following Microsoft 365 E3 offers remain available through December 31, 2026:

These offers provide additional opportunities to:

• Acquire new Microsoft 365 customers and expand license-count opportunities
• Upgrade eligible Office 365 customers to Microsoft 365 E3
• Build security, productivity, and AI-readiness conversations that can grow over time

Microsoft 365 E7 promotions retire October 1, 2026

Eligible Microsoft 365 E7 promotional purchases remain available through September 30, 2026. If you have active Microsoft 365 E7 opportunities in your pipeline, prioritize those transactions before these promotions retire.

Current eligible retirement offers include:

Details:

• Microsoft 365 E7 promotional offers remain available for eligible customer purchases through September 30, 2026
• New promotional transactions aren't available beginning October 1, 2026
• Existing subscriptions purchased before retirement continue according to contracted terms

Start building your growth margin strategy

The strongest Microsoft 365 opportunities come from deploying new workloads, expanding usage, deepening engagement, and turning early investments into lasting business outcomes. Growth margin reflects that shift by rewarding sustained customer growth and deployment success over time, so you can:

• Align sales, customer success, and service motions around ongoing Microsoft 365 usage and value realization
• Reduce reliance on limited-time promotional offers and foster longer-term customer relationships and expansion opportunities
• Expand Microsoft 365, AI, security, and workload conversations across the customer lifecycle

Next steps

• Review customer opportunities that might benefit from extended Microsoft 365 E3 promotions through December 31, 2026
• Identify eligible Microsoft 365 E7 opportunities and complete qualifying promotional transactions before September 30, 2026
• Review the Global Promotion Readiness Guide and growth margin resources to start planning your Microsoft 365 growth strategy

Copilot in 30 now generally available

Copilot in 30, a partner-led Microsoft 365 Copilot Business trial offering, is now available through Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners.

• Date: August 3, 2026
• Workspace: General
• Impacted audience: CSP authorized partners (global admin and billing admin roles) who support SMB customers with fewer than 300 employees.

Copilot in 30 is a new limited-time Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partner-led Microsoft 365 Copilot Business trial offering. It's now available in CSP New Commerce through December 31, 2026.

Through Copilot in 30, partners can introduce Copilot to more customers through a simple, repeatable framework built for scale. Built for organizations with fewer than 300 employees, the motion combines a 25-user, 30-day Microsoft 365 Copilot Business trial with resources and guidance to help customers identify priority users, explore relevant use cases, and evaluate potential value before broader deployment.

New customer evaluation tool coming soon

To support Copilot in 30, in mid-August Microsoft is introducing a new customer evaluation tool built to make this trial an even more practical, role-relevant experience for your customers. Customers select their industry and receive tailored prompts and scenarios they can use in their day-to-day work, making it easier to experience Copilot in the flow of their work, identify the most valuable use cases, and capture feedback throughout the trial.

Next steps

• Download the updated Copilot in 30 launch kit to access partner-ready assets, customer guidance, and campaign materials.
• Explore the new Copilot Success Microskilling series, available from August 3, 2026. The series is designed to enable partners to accelerate planning, customer targeting, trial execution, and reporting through ASPX. An additional Copilot Success Planner microskilling resource will be available on August 14, 2026.
• Start transacting Microsoft 365 Copilot Business trials via CSP New Commerce starting August 1, 2026 using product ID: CFQ7TTC0MM8R and SKU ID: 006Z.
• Stay tuned for further details on the customer evaluation tool to see how to tailor the Copilot in 30 for your customers.
• Review the Microsoft 365 Copilot Partner FAQ for frequently asked questions related to the trial.

Updated benefits redemption process

The updated process for redeeming the benefits provided in your benefits offering is now live.

• Date: August 3, 2026
• Workspace: General
• Impacted audience: All partners

Microsoft streamlined how partners access and redeem the seat-based cloud and Azure benefits attached to benefits offerings.

Benefits are now redeemed through a guided experience that starts in Partner Center and is completed via a 0 USD purchase flow, so that benefits can be deposited into the billing account used for offer purchases and are easy to manage.

Azure credits - including credits for GitHub Enterprise and GitHub Copilot Enterprise - are now redeemed through an updated experience in Partner Center. The credits are deposited directly onto a Billing profile, eliminating the previous steps of assigning a user, copying an activation link, and creating a new Azure subscription.

Additionally, effective November 1, 2026, Microsoft aligns the expiration date for each benefit to the date your offer was purchased, not the date a benefit was first redeemed. The alignment of benefit expiration date and package membership end date provides a more consistent renewal experience between offer membership and benefits availability.

Partners notice the following changes to their experience in Partner Center:

• The new guided experience in Partner Center completes with a 0 USD purchase in the admin center each time you activate a seat-based cloud benefit included in your offer
• The Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) billing account used for the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program purchase ties to benefits, and partners can only redeem benefits on tenants under that billing account (not third-party tenants)
• Partners see clearer benefits-related information in Partner Center, such as redemption status, quantity, and expiration alignment
• Individual benefits show an expiration date that matches the package membership end date

This update doesn't change your benefits. Instead, it modernizes the redemption experience by replacing key based activation with a secure, streamlined redemption model tied to your billing account.

The new redemption experience is now live in your region and applies to partners who purchase or renew their packages moving forward.

Next steps

Read the blog and visit Microsoft Learn for more details about these updates.